Components or parts for various machines and mechanical systems may be built using additive manufacturing systems. Additive manufacturing systems may build such components by continuously layering powder material in predetermined areas and performing a material transformation process, such as sintering, on the powder material. The material transformation process may alter the physical state of the powder material from a granular composition to a solid material to build the component. The components built using the additive manufacturing systems have nearly identical physical attributes as conventional components typically made by performing machining processes on stock material.
Once the additive manufactured components are built, the components undergo post-processing before being implemented or used by intended systems. One post-processing procedure that most components made from additive manufacturing typically undergo is a cleaning process. The additive manufactured components may be cleaned to remove all or substantially all debris, loose and/or excess particles or powder material from the components. Cleaning the components and removing the excess particles is crucial to ensuring the components do not cause damage within the system. Specifically, if all or substantially all excess particles are not removed from the component, the excess particles of the component may come loose and may damage the component or other portions/components of the system during assembly and/or operation.
To ensure that the additive manufactured components are adequately cleaned and/or substantially free of excess particles, additional post-processing procedures are performed after cleaning the component. In conventional procedures, the cleaned components may undergo x-ray scans using, for example, computed tomography (CT) scanning machines to ensure all or a desired amount of the excess particles are removed. The x-ray scans may determine if the additive manufactured component is substantially free of excess particles or powder material. However, where the component includes complex geometries and/or internal cavities or conduits, the x-ray scanning procedure may only be as accurate as the operational power or performance capabilities of the scanning machine. Additionally, machines capable of performing x-ray scans of the additive manufactured components are very expensive, and often require advance knowledge of the machine for proper use, calibration and maintenance. Furthermore, having to clean and subsequently scan the component adds additional steps to post-processing of the component, and ultimately results in an increase in time from when the additive manufactured component is created to when the component may be implemented within a system.